U.S. watchdog subpoenas swaps association over its benchmark

WASHINGTON, April 8 (Reuters) - The top U.S. derivatives
regulator is probing a widely used benchmark for swaps, the
trade body overseeing the rate said, dealing a further blow to
the opaque market after the sprawling Libor probe.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has
subpoenaed the International Swaps and Derivatives Association
(ISDA) over its ISDAfix benchmark, widely used to
anchor market rates, a spokeswoman for ISDA said.

Bloomberg reported on Monday that the CFTC was investigating
derivatives broker ICAP Plc and as many as 15 banks in a
probe into the possible manipulation of the benchmark.

The CFTC, which oversees the $640 trillion derivatives
market, wants to know if ICAP's staff were colluding with the
banks, who stand to profit from inaccurate quotes, Bloomberg
said, quoting people familiar with the matter.

The CFTC did not immediately return a request for comment. A
spokesman for ICAP declined to comment.

The CFTC's probe came about as it was working with European
regulators in the scandal surrounding the Libor interbank rate
benchmark, which has lead to have fines for UBS AG,
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Barclays Plc
, Bloomberg said.

The fixings are based on a survey of panel banks for the
different currencies, according to the ISDA website. ICAP
collects these contributions and sends them on to Thomson
Reuters Corp, which calculates the fixing.